Tom Steyer airing anti-Keystone ad on Obama’s big night

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s climate super PAC will run a television ad attacking the Keystone XL oil pipeline Tuesday night before and after the State of the Union, ramping up the pressure over one of the most politically heated decisions facing President Barack Obama this year.

The minute-long ad, which will run nationally on MSNBC, accuses backers of the Alberta-to-Texas project of treating Americans like “suckers” by promising that it would help the U.S. energy supply. In reality, the ad maintains, many of the benefits would go to China.

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“Keystone means more profit for investors like China, more power for their economy, and more carbon pollution for the world,” the ad says. It adds, “They’re counting on the U.S. to approve TransCanada’s pipeline to ship oil through America’s heartland and out to foreign countries like theirs.”

TransCanada spokesman James Millar disputed the ad’s claims, saying all of the company’s contracts for the oil that Keystone would carry are with U.S. companies like Valero Energy, ExxonMobil and Conoco.

Millar also questioned Steyer’s motives, insinuating that the California billionaire might be setting the stage for a future political career. “Something’s disingenuous with what he’s doing,” Millar said.

Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action PAC have become an increasingly powerful voice against TransCanada’s proposed project, as well as a political force that poured big money into aiding last year’s successful campaigns by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

The ad appears at the same time that Keystone supporters have become increasingly vocal in calling on Obama to approve the pipeline as a boon to jobs and North American energy security. Last week, Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) led all Republican senators in signing a letter telling Obama that “your administration has had more than enough time to … make a decision.”

The new ad by Steyer’s group aims to undercut Keystone supporters’ claims that the pipeline would bring crude oil to Texas that would stay in North America. Instead, displaying the visual backdrop of the Chinese flag, it says $30 billion in investments in Canadian oil have been tied to China.

In an email to reporters Monday, Steyer’s group noted that the ad will run just three days after a natural gas pipeline operated by TransCanada exploded in the Canadian province of Manitoba — though the explosion is not mentioned in the ad. Nobody was injured in the accident.

Steyer believes the ad will reach an estimated 3 million to 4 million viewers. A decision has not been made on whether it will run elsewhere.

The ad is the latest step in a well-funded public relations war between Steyer and TransCanada, whose project has become a lightning rod for Republicans, red-state Democrats and major environmental groups.

TransCanada launched a $1.1 million multimedia ad campaign last fall that touted the pipeline as a tool for reducing U.S. oil imports from the Middle East and other volatile regions. That campaign was intended to “correct the misinformation out there,” a company spokesman said at the time. It was clearly aimed at Steyer, whose PAC had spent about $1 million on four television ads timed for the Sunday talk shows.

Earlier this month, 18 environmental groups sent a letter to Obama reiterating their view that approving Keystone would significantly undermine his climate legacy. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has blanketed some D.C. Metro stations with ads proclaiming the northern nation as an energy ally to the U.S.

The State of the Union may end up being the last, best opportunity to get the pro- or anti-Keystone message out to a wide audience before the State Department releases its final environmental study on the project. That report is expected in the coming weeks. Obama’s final decision on the project has no specific timetable but may come ahead of the midterm elections.

TransCanada will wait until after the State Department releases its final environmental study to do another ad campaign, Millar said.

Hours before Tuesday’s speech, anti-Keystone activists are planning a noontime march around the Capitol with a 100-yard inflatable pipeline, inscribed with a message to Obama: “Climate Champion or Pipeline President.” The activists are being organized by the climate activist group 350.org, CREDO, Energy Action Coalition, Friends of the Earth and the National Wildlife Federation.

Obama plans to use his State of the Union speech to emphasize actions he is taking without Congress, including the first ever EPA greenhouse gas controls for power plants, which the administration is rolling out as part of a climate strategy he announced last summer.